Growing Your Misery

Every person's life involves choices, and each of us, at some point, makes a bad decision. Then, of course, there's a consequence, and we suffer, and we wonder what the hell happened? If we're lucky or smart or we get good advice, we usually can learn from our mistakes and get ourselves back to a better place.


However, some people appear to enjoy the tragedy--or at least the drama--of their own mistakes and the mistakes of others. They readily put on the guise of victim. They busily solicit sympathy from not only their friends and family, but also from relative strangers. It's as if they are energized by misfortune, and rather than use that energy to understand and rectify, they go about actively advertising and promoting the dilemma.


Hmmm...if misfortune is a sort of "cottage industry," a new business venture for the victimized, let's look at strategies for growing your misery: 


1. Get the word out!  
Post a self-serving ad on your FaceBook wall, inviting all comers to "Like" your victim status and express their outrage and pity. Call everyone you know and talk long into the night, detailing over and over your list of perceived slights. Send a tearful text message that is carefully crafted to appeal to everyone's sense of superiority, jealousy, and vengence.


2. Market your misfortune dramatically.
Be sure to exaggerate the scope and intensity of each insult. For example: Don't say, "He's fallen in love with another woman," but instead say, "He's cheated on me for the entire time we've been married!" 
Try slander, if it appears that it will help you sell your misery. Example: Not "He withdrew his half of our money," but "He cleaned out the bank account!"


3. Don't worry about hypocrisy. 
Always present yourself as the well-behaved one, even if it means conveniently "forgetting" past incidents, such as the fact that you were the first to betray your marriage vows, or the way that you spend money like it grows on trees. (And be sure to avoid showing anyone those hundreds of shoes and outfits with the tags still on them in your closet.)


4. Don't forget to flatter the patrons of your misery. Use lots of faux-affectionate honorifics. Thank them profusely for their pity and pledge undying "xoxo" love in return for their expressions of sympathy. Never mind that you barely know them and couldn't care less about their lives; you'll soon have a whole list of new BFFs!


5. Invest in partnerships. Whenever possible, enlist others in furthering your agenda of self-pity. If you can persuade someone else to help you plot your revenge, so much the better. When it backfires, you'll have someone to blame, and--an extra bonus--that partner can become your next victimizer. 


Follow these simple guidelines, and you'll be well on the road to professional victim status.  Yay! for you, you poor, pathetic, miserable thing. 


On a related note, here's a recommended book by Robert Trivers
The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life

WHETHER IT’S IN A COCKPIT AT TAKEOFF OR THE PLANNING OF AN OFFENSIVE WAR, a romantic relationship or a dispute at the office, there are many opportunities to lie and self-deceive—but deceit and self-deception carry the costs of being alienated from reality and can lead to disaster. So why does deception play such a prominent role in our everyday lives? In his bold new work, Rutgers University evolutionary theorist Robert Trivers unflinchingly argues that self-deception evolved in the service of deceit—the better to fool others. We do it for biological reasons—in order to help us survive and procreate. From viruses mimicking host behavior to humans misremembering (sometimes intentionally) the details of a quarrel, science has proven that the deceptive one can always outwit the masses. But we undertake this deception at our own peril.